VideogameVagabond.com

I used to wait as breathlessly as anyone for the release of the newest edition of Madden NFL. In fact, I was there from the very first edition on Sega Genesis, and bought the title uninterrupted until Sony introduced the original PlayStation. Even after that, I still loved Madden and bought it most years.

But in the past four years, I’ve grown less and less interested in Madden. Part of that is marriage, part of that is waning interest in football, and part of that is growing too enamored of PC sports management sims that are, simply put, more compelling to me at 43.

I mean, I still love football; I’m a fan of the Vikings and there will always be a place in my heart for, say, Adrian Peterson personalized footballs.

But Madden? Maybe I’ve played it for too long, too many years, but it’s just not compelling anymore. Sorry, EA!

Once Amazon announced the Kindle 3, I knew the time had come for me to commit to getting one; but I wanted to wait a bit. Then they sold out of the initial supply, so I finally decided I didn’t want to wait too long and end up not getting one till 2011. So I preordered.

Now I’ll just need to budget for it. At $139, it’s not an unreasonable price and I can budget for it. Then I’ll need to work on saving up for one for my wife. I think it’d make a nice birthday gift, and simplify her book-buying. But I’ll let her try mine first to see if it’s something she’d like well enough to use.

We’ll see. At least Kindle is a whole lot more interesting than talking about a life insurance lead, though that’s fun, too, if you’re in sales.

OK, so it’s not exactly a videogame, and the announcement didn’t come with a big giveaway of promotional umbrellas or anything like that, but Amazon.com today announced the third generation of the six-inch Kindle, and all I can say is, “Wow.”

For the budget conscious, I see they are offering a “WiFi-only” model for $139… that’s $50 less than any previous Kindle device, and with twice the memory of the K2… 4GB instead of only 2GB. With better screen contrast, longer battery life, a smaller, lighter form and faster performance, it’s everything I’ve wanted to see in a Kindle before deciding to buy one.

I thought I’d have to somehow find a way to save up for a Kindle DX to get all these features, but now the Kindle 3 has everything the DX has, except for a bigger screen. And with the WiFi access, it has one feature even the DX doesn’t have so far.

I’ve been vacillating between a Kindle, a Kindle DX and a Nook for a long time now; but I’ve finally decided that K3 is what I’m looking for, at the price I’m willing to pay. (Plus, I’ll probably re-activate my Audible account to get $100 knocked off my Kindle 3.)

Do I love gadgets almost as much as videogames? Sure… but I love reading even more!

Gran Turismo 5 will be the most recent full redo of Sony’s signature CarPG racing title, once it arrives, and the latest word on the oft-delayed title is that it’ll land this November, only six months from now. How realistic this timetable may be is anyone’s guess, but the upcoming E3 event should shed plenty of light on the game.

Sony’s Polyphony Studios, responsible for the franchise, has teased gamers with previews ever since the PS3 launched; a single-car, two track foretaste was released around the same time Sony debuted the PS3 version of the PlayStation Network.

Since then, a somewhat abbreviated version of the title, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, is the best the company has been able to manage. Even though it lacked the depth of cars and tracks its predecessors featured, the game still had more depth than most racing games on this or any previous generation.

Plus, last fall, Sony released the PSP version of Gran Turismo at long last, almost simultaneously with the PSP Go! system.

But now, with November as the next tentative target date for Gran Turismo 5, one wonders if this will finally be the year it’s actually released. The game is said to feature 16-player online play, and if that’s done over Sony’s free PSN network, the company could finally have a title that puts Xbox Live to shame, rather than browsing www.bestdietsupplements.org in peace..

In anticipation of the release of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands on Tuesday, I’ve been replaying the first PS3 Prince of Persia. The first time I played through it, my wife and I did not own an HDTV, so I’m getting the benefit of the game’s 720p glory for the first time.

While it’s perhaps not as glorious as time spent looking over rare Ferrari parts, I find myself once again struck by just how impressive this Prince of Persia title was; and I’ve gone back and played each of the PS2-era Prince of Persia titles just for comparison, and as good as they were for their time, none of them quite compare to the PS3/360 reboot of the franchise.

As much as I’m looking forward to The Forgotten Sands, what this replay experience is reminding me of is just how far the bar has been set. The Forgotten Sands will need to be far more than “more of the same” to measure up. The Prince of Persia on PS3/360 did not play like a first-wave next-gen title; it was smooth and gorgeous and deep; about its only weakness was the game’s limited HD support (to topped out at 720p, and had no 1080p mode).

Adding 1080p support would be a good start; making use of it to enhance the game’s playing experience would make it a worthy successor. I’ll know a lot more in a couple days.

A lot is riding on the next Prince of Persia properties.

First, there’s the videogame sequel to 2008′s next-gen relaunch of the series, Prince of Persia. The new chapter, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, will be released on May 18. Only ten days later, Jake Gyllenhaal will star as the Prince in a Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie, in theaters May 28.

If all goes well and nothing sucks, this could turn Prince of Persia, finally, into the Lara Croft replacement that the gaming world has long been searching for; a franchise that rocks as an adventure game and as a movie franchise. Lara never quite lived up to the hype as some of the games really stunk and the movies, despite a decent female star in Angelina Jolie, were largely disappointing and only bring back bad mac memory; but at least the Prince of Persia games rock.

Now all that remains to fall into place will be whether the movies are any good at all.

New Orleans Saints fans might want to take out a life insurance quote on QB Drew Brees; the Saints’ signal-caller has been selected as the new Madden ’11 cover athlete – and that rarely means good things to come.

Much has been made of the Madden Curse, and most of it is probably genuine hogwash and circumstantial bull. But you can never be too sure. While it’s a great honor for Brees to be recognized by EA Sports, one has to wonder whether his selection could portend a down season, a mid-season injury or some other tragedy.

Let’s hope not! (Except for any time they face my Vikings!)

March 9, 2010. It’s a date many are anticipating with great fervor, because the first Final Fantasy main-series release will be unveiled that day… now only five days away. It took 23 years since the release of the first Final Fantasy, and thirteen titles to reach this day, but is the series finally showing its age?

Nonsense. While SquareEnix has sunk millions into FFXIII’s production, and has even hinted that the series may head in a markedly different direction in the future, the game is as relevant as ever because despite experiments nearly every time out with the character progression system and battle system, the truth is that Final Fantasy has always defined the standard role playing experience on videogame consoles, from the original NES until today.

Sure, some folks will complain that FFXIII is either a sconce too old school, or too new-school for those who loved the previous outings, but Final Fantasy has never really been all that staid; the series has thrived on experimentation.

So, yes, games like Dragon Age: Origins, Oblivion and Fallout 3 may all thrive in open-world settings, but that means little; Final Fantasy has never played follow the leader to someone else’s flute. Don’t expect that to start now.

This weekend, mine was one of millions of fat PlayStation 3′s that became neigh-well unusuable for over 24 hours when the PlayStation Network refused to allow any sign-ins due to a Y2K holdover issue related to leap year (or the lack of one this year).

My PS3′s date and time were reset to 1/1/1999 and could only be re-set manually. Even after that, one could still not sign in to PSN, and any game that used trophies – even when played offline – were unusable. You couldn’t even sign into the PlayStation Store to shop gifts for Mothers Day … or any other day, for that matter.

Sony’s slow-to-respond response? “Wait for a day or so, and this’ll correct itself.” Yeah, real nice, Sony.

The Error 8001050F incident – or Blackout Sunday, as I like calling it – is not a first for PSN; it occurred in 2008 as well. Sony needs to fix this permanently via a system update so that it never happens again.

Foul us up once, Sony, shame on us. Foul us up twice with the same Error 8001050F? Shame on you.

I had my safety glasses on and I was ready for a firestorm, but so far my Top 20 Videogames of the Past Decade feature hasn’t stirred up much criticism.

I can’t say I’m disappointed; I wasn’t seeking controversy. But I will say I’m surprised. Then again, maybe I just did a better and more competent job at picking out the best games of the past ten years than the Nintendo-kissing fools at Yahoo Games.

Of course, that’s setting the bar pretty darn low.

Now that it is finally and fully revealed, I completely expect there to be plenty of criticism. The main one I expect is “How can you not include Grand Theft Auto?” followed closely by “How can you not include Legend of Zelda or one of the Mario games?”

Simple. I don’t like those games, and this is my list.

I hated Yahoo’s list, so I came up with my own. If you hate my list, exercise your Constitutional rights and make up one of YOUR own, too! That’s how it works in America; we don’t have to change our opinions to please others, and that’s all this list of the Top 20 Vidoegames of the Past Decade is… my opinion.

Are there games on here I loved that didn’t make the cut? Sure there are. I loved the Fatal Frame series, for example; but it just didn’t seem like a Top 20 kind of love. I love plenty of text-base sports management games on my PC, too; but they also didn’t seem like they belonged.

So, these are my decisions, my opinions. Take ‘em for what they are. Disagree on your own blog. But if you think spamming me because I didn’t include a game you like is gonna influence me, think again and spend your time saving up for those adult acne treatments! This is my blog and my opinion… and these are the games I loved most over the past ten years.

‘Nuff said.

1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360, PS3)

Sure, we know there are other Elder Scrolls titles out there. I enjoyed Morrowind on PC back in the day. Buy when it comes right down to it, only TES IV: Oblivion really shook the world awake that the next generation of videogame hardware had not only arrived, but defined a new level of gaming excellence.

Bet your Xenadrine RFA X on the fact that this was the defining game of the current generation of hardware, just like Final Fantasy X was the defining RPG for the previous generation of hardware.

Much as I enjoyed the more-recent Fallout 3, that game was merely riding in the shadows of Oblivion. Not only that, but for as much as I love Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it must be admitted that they are RPGs that owe at least part of their inspiration to Oblivion.

Yet here’s the bottom line for me: despite being just about the first – and for a long time, only – RPG of the 360/PS3 era, Oblivion still holds up well today, and ultimately it’s the videogame that converted my non-videogame-fan wife into a gamer.

Not only that, but between my wife and I, we pretty much KILLED out first Xbox 360 playing and replaying Oblivion… a game we own on two platforms, both 360 and PS3. Despite offering over 100 hours of gameplay, we’ve both played through the game more than once – there’s simply no other game this decade I can say that about. Between my wife and I, we’ve probably played 500 hours of Oblivion.

Nothing else matches that, or even comes close.